Congress would like to wrap up business by the end of this week, but partisan poison pills will probably delay its getaway. Three major items remain for floor action: a military authorization bill, a bundle of 2012 appropriations measures and a package renewing expiring tax and program provisions such as personal exemptions from the Alternative Minimum Tax, extension of current Medicare physician pay, unemployment insurance, and renewal of the current payroll tax holiday.

Since they are must-pass measures, partisans are adding a kitchen sink of extraneous provisions, hoping they will hitchhike a ride to enactment. Most of the items are poison pills, renewing last August’s game of legislative chicken to see which party will surrender to avoid government failure.

House leaders have added provisions to the extenders package that would block environmental rules, provide approval for a pipeline project, restrict the child tax credit, de-fund healthcare reform, increase Medicare premiums, freeze federal worker pay through 2015, and repeal several increases in corporate estimated tax payments. They need the list of provisions to pass the package to the Senate.

Senators will face similar floor amendments, with the additional obligation of a vote on a balanced budget amendment. Senate leaders hope to cast the riders aside and force the House to clear a relatively clean package for the White House.

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Last week, the House voted to kill farm dust regulations that have never been proposed. Senators filibustered extending the payroll tax holiday and defeated confirmation of President Barack Obama’s consumer finance regulator nominee.

This week’s partisan tempest will do little to salve the three-quarters of voters who say most members of Congress do not deserve re-election (half support reelecting their own representative). Meanwhile, President Obama earns job approval from 43 percent of voters, identical to his re-elect percentage. Since World War II, incumbent presidents with 48 percent or higher job approval in the last Gallup rating before the election have won second terms.